It is not easy to be an educator. Despite the fact that educators shape our most precious resource: the hearts and minds of future generations, we do not treat them like guardians of gold. We treat them with sub-$50K-a-year paychecks (despite a decade or two of experience). With classrooms that have holes in their ceilings, books held together by duct tape, and insufficient supplies that have them spending from their own pockets. And this, according to a 2018 The New York Times survey of public school teachers, is more often the case than not.

I felt like a monster less because of how I saw myself and more because of how other people treated me. People from my past as an art dealer in Los Angeles had stopped emailing me. They didn’t come to my art exhibitions. They were embarrassed to have known me, embarrassed of my choices (which included a return to art making, as well as moving back in with my parents at age 30). At least, that was my narrative. I wasn’t exactly emailing them either. My 12-step sponsor once told me that the world is nothing more than a projection of how you feel about yourself. In which case, I retract my earlier statement. I felt like a monster exactly because I saw myself as one. But enough about that. Back to Medusa.